So I Wrote This Book…

by Rebecca Valentine1 Comment
In April of 2009, I was contacted via email by a guy named Travis Thompson. Travis had a story to tell. A BIG story. A loooooong story. A fascinating story, really, about a Mormon kid who made good despite having an extermination order on his head, witnessing his uncle's violent death, surviving the death of his own beloved 5-year-old daughter, and experiencing the inherently risky life of a 19th-century adventurer on the American frontier. This pioneer's name was Perry A. Burgess, and if you're at all familiar with Steamboat Springs, you've heard of him, or at least his last name. It permeates that town. Maybe you've ridden his ski lift, or attended gatherings in one of his meeting rooms. Perhaps you've visited the Tread of Pioneers museum (which just happens to sit on the site that was once his backyard) or strolled along Burgess Promenade, which enjoys views of Burgess Creek. Seriously. The dude is everywhere. So Travis asks me if I'd...
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Like a Phoenix from the Ashes, Good Things Rise from Difficult Transitions

by Rebecca Valentine1 Comment
Every now and then, something happens that gives me pause to consider my life and where I'm at in the grand scheme of things. Yesterday, my newly published book arrived--100 copies of that book arrived, actually. And for a writer, I'm not sure there is a greater thrill than holding your book in your hands for the first time. It's heady stuff. In this case, that 500-plus-page book is the result of a year's worth of labor. So of course, I can't help but think back over the year. And what a year it's been. My life has been on ongoing series of transitions in the recent past. I left a 12-year relationship with the father of my daughters. It was a painful, gut-wrenching decision, one I had been struggling with for years. We had never married, but that fact didn't make the parting of ways any less difficult for us or our children. We had bought a house together, lost a...
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